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Editorial

by Katherine Cummings

This old lady doesn't often kick up her heels these days but on Saturday, 30 June it was all happening at the Sydney Town Hall and Phinn ("resistance is useless") Borg, the Gender Centre Coordinator and Katherine ("most things are useless") Cummings, the Gender Centre Resources Development Worker (and your beloved editor) attended the Aurora Foundation Annual Fund-Raising Dinner. The Aurora Foundation has for a number of years been providing grants for Gay and Lesbian projects of various kinds and this year provided funds to the transgender sector in the form of a grant to the Gender Centre which enabled us to provide furniture and fittings for one of our residential houses.

We are most grateful to the Foundation and were also pleased to be able to take part in the fund-raising effort at the Sydney Town Hall. The main hall was well filled and lavishly decorated with a James Bond theme of "Diamonds are Forever" with festoons of real diamonds (I assume they were real) hanging from the galleries and loose diamonds scattered on every table.

Well, maybe they weren't really real, but they looked good, and there was a stunning pair of real diamond earrings up for silent auction.

It was good to see corporate and institutional support in the form of a table from I.B.M., one from the New South Wales Police and another from the Labor Party. Malcolm Turnbull, Federal Minister for the Environment and Water, was present with his wife Lucy (formerly Lord Mayor of Sydney) and one assumes his table may have represented the Liberal sector. There were probably other tables organised by institutions and organisations but these were the only ones identified by me on the night. There were straight people there, too, and a number of these kept reassuring me of the fact.

The food was well prepared and served at a leisurely pace which allowed for table-hopping and conversation. There was entertainment, which was a bit night clubby for my taste, but the M.C., Denise Hanlon, was in excellent form and ran the programme with verve, confidence and stunning charisma. Various items were auctioned, including a motor scooter, which went for $6,000 and was then handed back to be re-auctioned, twice!

I was told on Monday that the total raised for Aurora was between $80,000 and $90,000. Well done, Aurora! Well done, us! The highlight of the evening, however, was the keynote speech by Georgina Beyer, who recently resigned as an M.P. in the New Zealand Parliament, the first openly transgendered person in the world to be elected Mayor of a town and the first openly transgendered person in the world to be elected to a National Parliament. Georgina is intelligent, personable and articulate and her keynote speech at the Aurora dinner lived up to her high standards. She spoke briefly of herself and the fact that she had entered Parliament with no hidden agendas and no suppressed histories.

Her life as a stripper, a sex worker and an activist were open to scrutiny when she became, first, a local politician and then, after a few years, a national politician and an icon for anti-discrimination activists everywhere.

One point she made which resonated deeply with me is our need to continue to work to improve the lot of transgendered children so that they will not need to suffer the confusion and mistreatment we suffered, we who knew from earliest memories that we were transgendered but did not dare to say it, or, if we said it, suffered socially, physically and psychologically. Georgina is not abandoning public life as she intends to stand again for the Mayoralty of Carterton, but she feels that her work at the national level has been achieved and it is time to move on although, as she says, "The people of Carterton need me!".

We were privileged to have Georgina visit the Gender Centre for lunch on the Monday following the Aurora dinner. Useful discussions took place during lunch, and Georgina has undertaken to liaise with the activists in New Zealand, in the hope that something like the Gender Centre can be established in New Zealand. Georgina pointed out that transgenders in New Zealand are already entitled to the same health care and social assistance as any other New Zealand citizen, but agreed that a holistic approach would be worth pursuing.

Other topics came up across a broad spectrum of transgender issues. We are fortunate indeed to have a person of Georgina's intelligence and charisma to carry the standard in so many arenas.

Ageing transgenders was one topic which was discussed as they will present a problem in the near future unless carers and public bodies charged with the care of the aged are fore warned of the possible problems in nursing homes and hospitals.

Training of carers is necessary if aged transgenders are to live in an integrated society with their peers, rather than in segregated ghettos set aside for people whose anatomies or personalities may not correlate exactly with their non-transgendered generational peers.

Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under the S.A.A.P. Program and supported by the N.S.W. Health Department through the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a forum for discussion and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification. Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc.I, the Department of Community Services or the N.S.W. Department of Health.